Chinese University Students to Top 16 MillionChina will increase the number of university students to 16 million in the next five years, compared with an enrollment of over 11 million in 2000.According to an special plan of educational development that the State Development Planning Commission (SDPC) drafted recently, enrollment of university students will account for 15 percent of school students in the country in 2005. By that time, the number of postgraduates will soar to 600,000. The plan has set a goal of lifting university attendance to a reasonably high level in the next five years. According to the plan, over 90 percent of Chinese children will enter junior high schools in 2005. Almost all the junior high school students in cities will proceed to senior high schools. As a result, the enrollment of senior high schools will rise from 27 million in 2000 to 46 million. In the next five years, all Chinese universities will establish their own digital information networks and will hook on to the Internet. Remote education through the Internet will also see rapid growth. Besides, China will establish the framework of a life-long education system through developing continued, remote and self education. The SDPC said that to realize these goals, China will carry out a series of major projects, including popularizing nine-year compulsory education universal in impoverished regions in central and western parts of the country, expanding vocational education, developing a modernized remote education system and upgrading the education system with information technologies. China will also takes effective measures to increase the proportion of educational funding in the gross domestic product ( GDP) and encourage all sectors of the society to fund schools, according to the Programs. |
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